


if a memory makes a moment

by orphan_account



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Sibling Incest, why must I ship all the ships with little to no fics :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 08:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9227582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Or, the one where little by little, all is revealed.





	

//  
  
  
  
At seven years old, it is revealed to Porpentina Esther Goldstein— in slow doses but in no uncertain terms —that she is plain.  
  
  
That she is plain in the way that water is wet  
or the sky is blue.  
  
  
  
  
Sure— her parents will brag about how sweet she is to anyone who will listen.  How Kind she is.  How Responsible she is.  How Wonderful she is at taking care of her baby sister but they hesitate around complimenting her appearance.

  
  
  
  
"Doesn't she just... have the cutest little nose?" They'll say or

  
  
  
  
"I don't know where she gets such... long brown hair but it isn't from either of us."  
  
  
  
  
  
They'll laugh afterwards, high pitched, self deprecating, whilst spending the rest of the day pinching her cheeks—avoiding her eyes.

  
  
And she'll know.

  
  
  
Not how Queenie knows things.  More in an Ah Hah way that chips away little by little at her self esteem.

(Her parents dying shortly thereafter hardly hurts matters.  Hardly helps matters either.)

 

  
//  
  
  
  
  
  
At fifteen years old, it is revealed to Porpentina Esther Goldstein— very very suddenly like a bucket of ice water thrown in her face —that her sister however, her baby sister who insists on twirling her fingers in her hair like some ditzy idiot with no thoughts of her own, well she, according to mass consensus is the "most beautiful thing to walk on two legs since god invented human beings".

Nevermind that Timothy Abernathy (as stated to her several times in the quiet of a secluded classroom) is an Atheist.  
Nevermind that Timothy Abernathy is seventeen and therefore _four years older_ than her sister.  
Nevermind sense  
  
or logic  
  
or practicality.    
  
  
"Facts" are "facts" and This "fact" more than the other told to her by her parents long ago, more than many many other "facts" (and it is known by almost all in her year that Porpentina is familiar with a lot) told to her by various people she admires, hurts.

  
  
  
  
Her (Ex)boyfriend breaking up with her for Queenie, after telling her this "fact" along with a host of thin excuses hardly hurts matters.  Hardly helps matters either.

  
  
  
"Forgive me Teenie.." Queenie pleads after Timothy has said his piece.  One trembling finger wrapped around her ex-boyfriends hand, the other wrapped around a loose tendril of her strawberry blonde hair and Porpentina for the life of her can't not.

  
  
  
  
She hates _him_ now of course—  spends the better part of the next two months sobbing instead of studying because of it  —but the idea of a world in which Queenie could do something that Porpentina wouldn't forgive is a world that simply doesn't exist.  No rhyme or reason to it.  
It just is.  
  
  
Before absolution is even offered to Queenie, Queenie's face, previously tensed—relaxes.  She sheds a single tear, like the melodramatic sycophant she is and drops his hand to embrace Porpentina.  
  
  
  
  
She smells like cinnamon(.  Smells like an odd dream Porpentina once had where Queenie had been covered in daisies and nothing else.) and holds onto Porpentina as if she'll float way.  Porpentina, for her part, curls her hands into fists at her sides until her hands begin to throb instead of embracing her back.

  
"I love you." Queenie whispers into her neck.  
  
  
Porpentina shivers, thinks _I know_  but it goes without saying.  
  
  
  
//

At sixteen  
and seventeen  
and eighteen  
and nineteen  
and twenty  
and twenty one  
and twenty two  
and twenty three  
and twenty four nothing is revealed to Porpentina Esther Goldstein.  
  
Meanwhile, she dreams.  
  
  
  
  
  
//  
  
  
  
  
  
At twenty five years old it is revealed to Porpentina Esther Goldstein—  though at this point everyone, other than her sister, with a will to live refers to her as Tina  —that her dreams, those odd dreams she's been having off and on since she was fifteen are not in fact actually dreams.

  
  
  
She's drunk is the thing.  There's no other reason the slightly slurred words "D'you think I'm pretty?" would ever leave her lips, in the company of anyone with a pulse.  But she's drunk not incapacitated—so she manages to add a level of sophistication to her voice that certain others (i.e Qu eenie) if drunk would not be able.

  
  
"You know I do." Queenie replies, very very sober and exhausted all of a sudden.  So exhausted that Tina has to look her in the eye, has to see where that tone is coming from.

  
  
_No you don't_ She thinks without thinking.  Water leaking out of her eyes for some reason but that's neither here nor there.

  
  
  
"Oh Teenie," Queenie whispers, abruptly in her space, cupping Tina's face in hands too soft to be real.  Tina trembles, shutting her eyes automatically.

  
  
"Stay out of my head." She means to murmur but nearly screams instead, shoving her too soft hands away.  
  
Then shoving her too soft body away.  Then shoving her some more, just because the nearness reminds her of a recurring dream she keeps having, where there are marks all over Queenie's skin, marks someone somewhere put there... No.  Shoving her some more just because.  
  
  
Just Because.  
  
  
  
Just Because!

  
  
  
"Teenie.." Queenie breathes out, wincing.

  
Later she'll rationalize it as being something to do when one is desperate or out of time or out of ideas but for now she can only internally cry out before she slaps Queenie hard across the face, hard enough to leave the imprint of her hand there. "Stop calling me that!"

  
Queenie stills, clutching her reddened cheek with both hands, an "I'm sorry" on her lips the same moment the words reverberate in Tina's skull.

And it's like she's been crucio'd because the anger, the frustration— leaves as quickly as it had come.  Replaced almost instantly with an unchecked hunger, a need without a name that spreads through her whole body.  From one blink to the next she's got Queenie's hair tangled in her fingers.  Her lips burned against Queenie's throat and cheek and mouth  
and she can't breathe or think she can only feel.  Feel hands, her too soft hands racing against her skin as if they have been there before.    
  
  
As if they belong there.  
  
  
_I'm sorry_ she repeats over and over in her head but she doesn't stop.

  
  
  
  
"What have you done.. to me?" She says, much later with an arm over her face, horror and disbelief clinging to her skin.  Nevermind that she only added the last two words to make it less a question to ask herself and more a question to ask Queenie.

  
Queenie turns away, slipping her nightgown easily back over her head.  "Nothing we haven't done already."

  
  
  
Every word is a pathway.  Every sentence leading her to partially opened doors and Tina knows all she has to do is keep her mouth shut to avoid those doors.  She says "What?" because she can't not.

  
"You heard me." Queenie replies, her voice steel, agony in Tina's ears.

  
"What're you.. " She hears a distant moan, an echo of _Teenie_.  ".. That isn't," She shakes her head whilst phantom fingers run down her breasts, down her stomach, down and down and down.  "real those aren't.. real.. "  
  
She's never had dreams while awake before.  This is new.  Maybe she's going insane.  ".. they're just Dre-n-nightmares-"

  
  
"Nightmares huh?" Queenie chuckles, here quiet and cold and there warm and inviting. "I guess we've had the exact same nightmares for the past 10 years then."

  
  
".. No-"

  
  
"-You never wonder,"

  
  
"Shut up!" Images of Queenie undressed, of Queenie moaning, arching, writhing beneath her fingers flip past her brain in a blur.  

  
  
"Look at me.  Ask yourself why a pretty young thing like me doesn't have a fella-"

  
  
Her hair is longer then Tina's until it isn't. "Stop it!!"

  
  
"Not like I haven't gotten any offers,"

  
  
She's dizzy, dizzy and nauseous.  
  
  
  
"Rich handsome men begging to sweep me off my feet, take me away from my 'spinster sister',"

 

She moves to put her hands over her ears.  Queenie stops her.

  
"You can obliviate the memories all you want - the feelings, those don't go away Teeny.  Believe me, I know better than most."

  
She begins to cry or she's been crying all along, either way Tina cries until her eyes are puffy and red, cries until she can no longer feel her face, cries until the tears run out and the accusations roll in, cries until those two simple "facts" she's learned over the years become three.  
  
Fact 1: She is plain.  
Fact 2: Queenie is not.  
Fact 3: She is _Not Normal_.

  
In the interim her hand continues to be a hand splayed over her sisters skin.  Night becomes morning, becomes afternoon and the world ceases to end and Queenie is Queenie is Queenie against her side, like a lifeline, like an anchor.

  
  
"Will you stay?" Queenie asks, sunlight in her hair, making her seem more and more like an angel Tina has tricked into staying on earth, tense and wide awake because of course she is.

  
And to Tina the question makes no sense.  They live together after all, the only reason she can even afford this place is because they're sharing the rent, of course she'll stay.  
  
But there's something familiar about it nonetheless as if Queenie has asked it a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times in a million different ways in some forgotten dream, a forgotten dream where all she can say or think or know _is_ No.  
  
Tina rests her head against Queenie's chest, takes a deep breath, closes her eyes  
and says  
or thinks  
or knows without delving deeper to discover its true meaning

_Yes._

   
  
  
  
  
  
  
                                                                                                                      _ **FIN**_

**Author's Note:**

> Technically Queenie has no birth date so I made up one. It is currently and forever (if I make more fics for these two) February 26th,1903. Leo and Pisces man, what a beautiful disaster. Also the title comes from a line in new division's "true lies" song, a fantastic song that you should all listen to at some point :D.


End file.
